


dying

by mercury_wings



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Character Death, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-24
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:34:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23297863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercury_wings/pseuds/mercury_wings
Summary: The thing is, as powerful as Allura was, even she could not defeat death. And Lance knows that.So when he is hit by that lightning strike, somewhere in space, while protecting her, well,He dies.
Relationships: Allura & Lance (Voltron), Hunk & Lance (Voltron), Keith & Lance (Voltron), Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance & Shiro (Voltron), Lance (Voltron) & Everyone
Kudos: 41





	dying

**Author's Note:**

> POV you're me at 2 am, thinking about Lance's very very glossed over death in that episode when they save that planet from radiation, and then this happens

He does not really know how it happened.

  
Honestly, he never really knows how it happens.

  
There is just someone in danger, and then something imminent coming their direction, and then he screams their names and moves, and then pain.

  
Being a paladin of voltron meant taking risks. Big risks. And he knew that, of course he knew that.  
What he did not know, though, was how real that risk was until he nearly dies once and wakes up sad and distraught. He does not want it to happen ever again, yes, never again, but it happens again.

  
Except this time, there is no real black out and high pitched ringing. There is the flash of light, the electric shock, and the coursing pulse of pain, but then he does not pass out.

  
Lance is fully aware of every single thing going on when he slips right out of Red who, bless his sweet lion soul, roars load in panic. Allura is also roaring, or screaming, or maybe it was Blue ? No idea.

  
He plunges head first into something. Not unconsciousness, as his eyes are open wide and dry. They well up eventually, when he realizes he's falling literally into an endless...something.

  
But then there is light again. Purple, uneasy, bright, and his heat hits the ground with a dull sound and he stops falling. He almost starts crying, too- not because of the pain but of the relief. It's safe now. It does not move. It does not really hurt, either.

  
Someone calls him. He raises his head immediately, though his vision is swimming in tears, and that someone runs towards him. “Lance !” the man yells. “Lance, what are you doing here !”

  
And said Lance feels very dumb at that moment. Maybe because he hit his head hard. Maybe because he had fallen down from Red, and he did not know where he was, and he did not know what was happening to him. So he answers, “I don't know.”

  
The man is here now, close, bringing him up with such big but soft hands and they feel familiar, fatherly; he sinks into them. He closes his eyes- they were so full of tears that he could not see anyways. The voice keeps going. “Are you alright ? What is going on ? Lance ? Lance ?”

  
“I'm fine, Shiro.” He replies naturally. Shiro, right, that was the man's name. He does not ask himself when he had associated the voice with the name. Does not ask himself anything. Falling down felt awfully tiring.

  
There is worry in the hands that try to handle him in a sitting position. “But Lance, how are you fine ?” Shiro questions. “You are here, how can you be fine ?”

  
So Lance opens his eyes. He blinks a few times, forces his weirdly stiff muscles to move him around, and then starts blinking again. “I don't know, Shiro.” He says, a little distraught. The place was weird. Out of their world. Purple and shining and definitely not made of normal ground.

  
Then he looks down. The floor looks back at him. His reflection looks back at him. Except it does not, really. 

  
Because his reflection is a dead, fuming, burnt body.

  
Lance screams, springing upwards, away, far away from the reflection. Shiro extends his arms to catch him, mouthing a silent plea, a silent cry, something like “Calm down !”, something fatherly that should have made the boy breathe better except the corpse it’s there and it is glaring at him and.

  
He definitely feels like throwing up. In a blink, his stomach spikes up and comes hitting his lungs, and then he falls back on the floor again. Somewhere else. He coughs, gags, forces the vision out of his throat the best he can but it hurts, and it burns, and he starts scratching his neck in panic. Footsteps are coming closer, but it is hard to focus on them when his heart is not beating and his breath is hollow, useless.

  
“Lance !” again, a boy is calling him. “Lance !” and a girl, too. He does not answer, cannot answer, because there is no more oxygen in his lungs and even though he inhales and exhales as best as he can, nothing helps. Both people arrive, sink to their knees around him. They repeat his name. He cries louder as a response.

  
Then two strong arms take him, pushing him into something warm, alive, with a heartbeat that is fast but steady and real. Lance knows this embrace. He also knows he cannot afford to lose said embrace. He forces his hands away from his neck and grabs the boy's back with every ounce of strength left in his body. He wants to melt in the warmth. He wants it to make his throat stop burning.

  
“Lance, buddy, what's up ?” the boy, it's Hunk, it’s his best friend, the one with the best hugs, who speaks in a very tiny voice for his very big body. Lance gasps for air to provide an answer, then buries his head in the boy's shoulder again to hear the heartbeat and calm down. He can smell Hunk – he had probably been baking, because his clothes were warm as if toasted out of an oven and they felt tasty.

  
“Lance, can you talk ?” a very tiny hand puts itself between his shoulder blades. He jerks up, coughs violently, and suddenly shrinks on itself. It is so harsh, it hurts so much, that he cannot even hold on to Hunk anymore. “Lance ?” the girl repeats, Pidge, his smartest friend, the one who would save him. She puts her hands over his head, smoothing his hair down. Her small fingers tangle themselves in his tiny cowlicks, and it would have felt nice, if he was not dying.

  
His head rests on the floor, where no heartbeat welcomes him. “Lancey Lance, Loverboy Lance, come on buddy,” Hunk’s voice gets even weaker, sadder. “Tell us something, anything !”

  
And he wants to tell them something, everything. He really wants to. And Allura was still out there, they had to go save her ! But he can feel their voices get distant, then more alert, and they jumble words and syllables into sobs and confused cries. He catches one or two “Please” inside it all. He wants to answer.

  
He cannot.

  
Pidge yells one last time “You can't go !” but it is already too late.

  
The coughing stops.

  
The sudden silence hurts. It does. The cold as well. Lance gets up, all alone, surrounded by an icy yet dully comforting blue. It makes him think of the sea.

A bit scary, but good.

  
It makes him think of his family.

  
What was he going to tell them ? Or, even worse, who was going to have to tell them what had happened ? Veronica would be furious. She'd probably come dig him out of his grave to beat him up. Rachel would do the same.

  
He thinks about his mom, and dad. And then about Hunk and Pidge. And then about Hunk and Pidge's reactions, and thinks about his mom and dad crying.

  
It makes him cry.

  
He wants to go back.

  
Then he feels her. She is right behind him, and he knows it. Silently, she sits down next to him. He does not react.

  
“You are not dying, Lance.” Allura says, in the voice she took when she was lying to herself.

  
“Except I kind of am.” He replies just as fast. He hears her take a sharp breath. He knows she disagrees.

  
“I am bringing you back.”

  
“Allura, you are the second strongest woman I have ever met, first one being my mom.” And he means it. “But even you can't fight death.”

  
He wonders how he got so eloquent all of a sudden. Maybe it is because Allura needs eloquence to accept departure. Pidge and Hunk did not need big words. They needed a simple best mate. Allura needed a warrior.

  
“You cannot die, Lance. You’re a paladin. Voltron needs you.” She answers instead. But Lance had done the maths already, and he knows.

  
“Keith will take back the red lion. He's always been a better pilot than me anyways.”

  
Allura disagrees, again. He does not add anything else, though, because she would get mad. Besides, she was crying. She needed solitude to accept. So he gets up, and walks.

  
Heading somewhere. Away. All of a sudden he feels selfish, he wants to go back, but then it would make the princess upset, so he does not. Instead he goes forward again.

  
Just as he feels something stop, something other than his breath or heartbeat, he hears Allura call him and he almost wishes to turn around and call her back but he cannot. So instead he slips, drops, falls down again.

  
Was this how it would end ? A fall, without anything to fall upon. Infinite fall. Into this void, which shone bright. With all the time he needed and more, to think about all the people he was making sad. He closes his eyes – maybe that would make it easier.

  
Except not really.

  
Suddenly someone catches him. It is surreal, because the person cradles him with ease but Lance had been falling for a while now. He is led to the ground – there was a ground – with grace, and he opens his eyes.

  
Keith.

  
“Dude, where are we ?” said boy asks immediately. Lance wants to scream because of fucking course, he had to see him too, in this endless torment. “What’s going on ?”

  
He does not answer. He is already weirdly floating, and stares right into Keith's purple eyes. The stare is given back, confused, but gorgeous, shining like two black skies.

  
He did not know that was the last thing he was going to be allowed to see.

  
Lance feels tears creeping back again. Burning his nose. Filling his cheeks. The other does not say anything, except awkwardly rubbing circles on the back of his hand.

  
Keith was not even here, during the mission. Did not even know the danger. Had no idea of what was going on.

  
“Can I help ?” he asks meekly, as if he had never left.

  
“I’m dying, Keith.”

  
The explosion of emptiness that follows in his chest is nothing compared to the pure fear taking over the two eyes watching him. In surprise, Keith drops him.

The ground disappears, just then, at the perfect timing.

  
And this time, he falls without a sound, in the true final darkness within.

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I am a sucker for klance and just everyone supporting Lance like he deserves. So I miiight write a full story going in this with Keith discovering what happened and then you know...magical memory transplanting...and stuff...


End file.
